This series of blog posts adapts the Spiritual Exercises for a pilgrimage (such as the Camino) and for other ways of growing spiritually following the insights of Ignatius.
Here are previous posts in this series – a good place to start:
How to Pray Like a Pilgrim – Camino Lessons from St Ignatius Loyola
Soul of my Saviour
Spiritual Exercises – 19th Annotation Pilgrimage
Pilgrim’s Purpose
Ignatius Four Week Pilgrimage of Prayer
Sin and Hell in the First Week of the Exercises
Application of the Senses
The Call of Christ the King
Incarnation and Christmas
If you are needing a text: Draw me into your friendship – online edition of literal translation and contemporary reading (by David Fleming, S.J.) of the Spiritual Exercises of St Ignatius Loyola.
After meditating on the childhood of Jesus, Ignatius would have us consider what kind of life God would have us live. Introducing this, Ignatius has a meditation on two standards. Satan would have people desire riches. leading to honour, and then pride – with all other vices following from this. Christ’s steps are in the opposite direction: poverty, insults or contempt, humility – with all other virtues following from this.
This is not just for those making a life choice, it can be a reflection on what sort of person I am becoming (how I seek security; how I respond to humiliation or failure; what I instinctively avoid, etc). It helps discernment; it examines motivation.
There is a connection between pilgrimage and the Two Standards. Pilgrimage confronts: how much do I carry? How much do I need? What comforts can I do without? Pilgrimage accepts uncertainty about food, lodging, weather. It highlights interdependence and trust. Status, titles, achievements become less relevant. Jesus, in the Gospels, is a pilgrimage leader. Pilgrimage has daily decisions: when to stop, where to stay, do I walk alone or with others? How do I treat someone I’ve just met, someone different from me? Pilgrimage is a daily choice to follow Christ.
image source – image “A Choice” by Lauren Wright Pittman (2018):
Jesus offers the crowd (us) a layered and complicated choice, one that is as complex as his own dualistic nature. The first option is self-denial, a heavy burden, and a lost—but saved—life. The second is gaining the whole world, but forfeiting life. It’s easy for a seasoned Christian to take this choice for granted. This choice that Jesus calls us into may even seem like a no brainer, but in this moment, Jesus teaches of the terrors that will befall him and invites the crowd to knowingly face that path alongside him. If we’re honest,it is extremely difficult to reject the tempting power and wealth this world has to offer and allow our life to take the shape of good news for all.
The choice isn’t an obvious one. One side looks like an opulent pile of riches, a crown, and endless power, while the other looks like tattered and worn hands with new life blooming out of wounds, work,burdens and relationships. This choice may seem like a distant decision made long ago, but it’s a decision to be made every single day, one moment at a time. In working for and with the downtrodden,poor, orphaned, widowed, ostracized, and oppressed, we will find ourselves.
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